The Ultimate Personal Branding Guide for Coaches, Consultants and Entrepreneurs

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Apr 20

Written By brandmerry

The Ultimate Personal Branding Guide for Coaches, Consultants and Entrepreneurs

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

Everything you need to know about personal branding as an entrepreneur.

Let's dive into why personal branding is essential 👇

THE IMPORTANCE OF BRANDING

Having a solid brand impacts the success of your marketing.

It allows you to craft messaging that pulls in your audience.

Having a solid brand allows you to know what to use for SEO to rank.

Having a solid brand tells you the type of copy and imagery to use on Facebook ads and Pinterest ads, so that they convert into sales.

Having a solid brand tells you what type of product or service you're going to put out into the world that's in alignment with what you want to provide and what your audience needs.

Having a solid brand is important, and it is the foundation of the things that you can achieve in your business.

Without a solid brand, your marketing will suffer.

SIGNS YOUR BRANDING ISN’T COMPLETE

Alright, now that we are all on the same page about the importance of branding as an entrepreneur, let’s dive into some of the signs that your brand might need some additional work. It’s important to pay attention to these signs and make adjustments so you can move forward with confidence in marketing your brand and business.

👉 SIGN #1: You’re Struggling to Make a Sale

Now, maybe it's your first sale or maybe you made a sale three months ago, but regardless of timing you're having trouble signing another client, or making another sale in your course.

The thing to keep in mind is that selling doesn't happen at the moment that someone's like, "I want to buy your product," it's happening long before.

It's happening the first time they come across your social media channel, your freebie, your Facebook ad, your website.
That's when the relationship and sale are starting and that is all reliant on branding.

That first feeling they get when they see your brand, the messaging that they're picking up on, that this is exactly what they need in their lives at this moment, how you're following up, your email campaign, the live streams you're doing, the podcasts; all of that is directly tied to branding.

The selling process has to start long before you actually send an email that says, "By the way, guys, selling this thing." Because if it doesn't, you're going to notice that you don't sell any of the “thing”. Because without that strong connection, nobody really knows what you're about, and there will most likely still be a lack of trust. If you don't email them ever or have clear, consistent content, they might not even know who the hell you are.

These are important pieces of branding.

So if you're struggling to make a sale, or let's just even say consistent sales, even consistent money, it's possible that you have a branding problem.

👉 SIGN #2: Your Messaging is All Over The Place

At least once a week, someone will message me and say, "Michelle, I'm looking for support. I want to work one-on-one with somebody. My biggest hurdle is that I feel like my messaging is all over the place."

If you feel like your messaging is all over the place, I can tell you with 100% certainty that that is a branding problem.

How you show up, how you share what you do in a way that clearly communicates to your audience that it's for them and how it will benefit them is part of your brand. So if you feel like your messaging is all over the place, it could be because of two different things.

One, it could be your social channels, and your website, and your emails all look very different. They all sound very different. There's not a clear linear message.

It could also be that anytime you're talking about your product or an offer, maybe you're in the middle of a launch, all your messaging is different. There's no clear, "This is the program. This is who it's for. And this is how it will benefit you," or, "This is the product. This is who it's for. This is how it will benefit you."

That is a sign that your messaging is all over the place.

And maybe you've already felt it, you aren't successful with your selling, because people aren't really sure what it is that you're doing and how it's going to support them. And that's huge.

👉 SIGN #3: Your Website Isn’t Converting

Your website is the experience that you get to control, and there's no algorithm fighting against you which is so nice.

But, once again if your website isn't converting viewers into subscribers or clients, it is a branding problem.

Because if people don't understand who you are and what you can help them with, they will peace out and they will do it very quickly.

I very rarely talk about the aesthetics as it relates to branding, but the reality is that with your website, those photos, those colors, those aesthetics, those fonts, that one-liner at the top, can make or break someone staying on your website or bouncing right off.

5 seconds is about all you have before someone says, "Is this for me? Is this not for me? Okay. Bye."

The photos and those pieces of your branding pull them in really, really quickly, and then it's all about your language and your messaging to keep them captivated and to convert them. So if you have a website, if you're getting traffic, and it's not converting, we have a branding problem.

These are three examples of possible holes in your branding, and the most popular one’s I see and hear from my clients and community.

Want a Deeper dive? keep reading here

How to Find Your Personal Brand 👇

What is a Personal Brand?

Your personal brand is the experience you create for your audience. It’s made up of your experiences, stories, skills, and personality.

Building your personal brand is important online, because whether you like it or not your personal brand is being written for you. The way social media works today is if you’re not in the driver's seat controlling your brand, you risk the wrong message getting out.

If you have a business, then personal branding allows you to create a deeper connection with your audience that builds trust and goes deeper than just the product or service you provide.

So how do you find your personal brand?

I’ve got 4 simple steps and important questions to ask yourself in the process.

1. Create a Personal Brand Identity Starting With You

If you want to create a personal brand identity it’s time to get, well, personal. The idea of a personal brand is that you and your story will be at the center of your brand.

So, before we get into strategy, ideal client work or messaging (which we will cover by the way) we need to take a look at your own authenticity and personality.

What makes you who you are? This includes the way you speak and write, the things you like to surround yourself with, what you value most and yes your favorite color. All of this is going to play a big role in building your personal brand.

When you can begin the process by looking inward rather than outward, you’ll better understand how to present yourself in the online space and that is SO important.

With how fast social media is changing and how many entrepreneurs are in your niche, it’s so important that your brand, the core of your business, is not only defined but is also different.

Now, before you freak out and say to me, “But, Michelle I’m no different, nothing exciting happened to me!”

I’d say, “Give me 60 minutes…” just kidding, but seriously, it often takes me just one coaching session to pull out the parts of you that are authentic, different and will set you apart from others in your industry.

And where I start with all of my clients is their story. Every single person has a story and that right there is what’s going to set you apart and build trust with your audience.

You can learn more about Brand Story in this post and take my Brand Story Quiz here.

2. Identify Your Personal Brand Audience and Future Clients

Alright, now that we’ve identified, or started to identify the core of your brand, there’s another crucial part.

I think we can agree that communication is a two-way street and that’s exactly what you’re setting out to do online when posting on social media, creating your website and writing emails. You can create that stuff all dang day, but if no one is receiving your message it kind of means nothing.

This is why identifying your audience is so important and should be done at the beginning of your business.

Identifying your audience consists of three parts:

Daydreaming about who you want to work with
Justifying your “dreams” with market research
Creating a client profile

The key step here, and what so many entrepreneurs skip, is the element of Market Research. Please promise me right now that you won’t skip this step.

Using free tools on social media, via Google, Facebook Groups and personal conversations you can begin to identify the key components of your audience and use that in your branding and marketing down the line.

3. Map Out Your Brand Offer and Framework

Let’s get one thing clear...I DO NOT MEAN YOUR PRODUCT.

So many people think that their product is part of their brand, but it’s not that’s all your business boo and without a brand, well you won’t have a successful business.

If you start with your product or service you’re going to miss the mark. You’ll have the logistics in place, but no clear pathway or transformation that you’re providing your client.

It’s important, during the branding process to take time to clearly state the transformation you provide and the overall framework for your product and services.

And, no, I don’t care if you sell soap or an online course, what are you providing your client beyond the individual product.

4. Create an Emotional Brand Experience for Your Audience

Want to stand out online?

Do you want your brand to do more than just get some followers and look pretty?

Then, you need emotional branding my friend. Emotional Branding is my specialty and something you don’t often find online but can be the difference between a brand that makes money and one that doesn’t.

The idea of Emotional Branding is that your audience will feel a deeper connection to your brand, above someone else's and therefore know, like and trust you...which as you guessed it, leads to business.

If you want to learn more about Emotional Branding specifically, you can check out this post.

Before you decide on your fonts, finalize your colors, create a logo or get your brand photos taken you want to identify the emotional core of your brand.

From here choose the aesthetics of your brand will be a breeze.

CLICK Here to see some specific questions to help you!

Brand Affinity 👇

WHAT IS BRAND AFFINITY?

Brand Affinity is when a consumer believes a particular brand shares the same values as them.

It’s deeper than a knowledge of the brand, brand awareness, and begins to build the connection between consumer and brand on a more personal and emotional level.

This connection is what allows you, as the brand, to not only stand out online but keep your audience coming back time and time again.

Remember purchase decisions come down to trust.

“If someone likes you they’ll listen to you, if they trust you they’ll do business with you!” - Zig Ziglar

Building this trust is necessary when building an online brand in 2020 and beyond because consumers are looking for brands that they can trust.

As more generations become part of movements and make changes in their personal lives they’re looking for brands that share those values and go even further to provide support for those values as well.

When you build brand affinity with your audience you increase the likelihood that they will purchase your service or product, you create a consumer base that sticks around for the long haul (hello community) and your audience is more likely to refer others to your brand.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a sweet deal.

5 WAYS TO INCREASE YOUR BRAND AFFINITY

I know you’re wondering, “Michelle, aside from storytelling how can I increase Brand Affinity with my community?”

Well, I’m so glad you asked!

I know storytelling can feel complex, I’ve included some resources below to support you with this, but I want you to be able to start TODAY. So, below you’ll find five simple ways to improve your Brand Affinity almost immediately.

1 | SHARE YOUR BRAND VALUES

Seems simple enough right? Well, not enough brands are identifying the values of their brand and therefore aren’t sharing them. How do you expect someone to experience Brand Affinity, shared values, if you yourself don’t know your brand values.

So, if you haven’t already identified yours now is the time to start.

I suggest thinking of the values you personally hold and how those connect to your brand.

What values do you want to share between you and your consumer, it will be a lot easier to build a business you love if you attract the right people.

For instance, some of my brand values are:

+ Authenticity
+ Transparency
+ Care and Attention to Detail
+ Reduce the overwhelm
+ The desire for our living a Freedom lifestyle

I showcase these through my marketing, every email, photo, etc is focused on attracting people who share the same values.

TAKE ACTION: Identify your core values and then share them.

The simplest thing to do is post them on your website, this can be done on your About Me page, but as we talked about earlier you’ll also want to showcase these through storytelling.

2| SHARE THE MISSION BEHIND YOUR BRAND

I started my career in non-profit work so forgive me as a gush over the power of a Brand Mission. As business owners we forget this, not enough business owners are taking the time to identify the mission or purpose behind their brand and this is a mistake.

63% of consumers state they want to buy from purpose-driven businesses.

And although money is amazing, I love it myself, it’s not the purpose. Your purpose and mission need to be deeper than that.

For instance, the mission behind my brand is…
“To empower women to uncover and own their story and share it with the world through their personal brand.”

This mission not only drives every decision in my business, but is also one of the main connectors for my audience.

TAKE ACTION: Identify your mission.
What is the purpose behind your business?
What legacy do you want to leave begin with your work?

Then share it! I love encouraging my clients to share their mission statement on their Home Page, but you can also include it on your About Me page.

3 | SHOW BRAND AFFINITY THROUGH PHOTOS

This is my favorite thing to do as a personal brand and it’s so important. We often don’t think about the effect of Instagram on building trust or the use of seeing multiple photos on a website as a way to build Brand Affinity, but it’s actually a very powerful practice.

Here’s why it’s so powerful. When you showcase multiple photos of yourself, different outfits, different locations, different expressions your audience feels as if they are seeing at different moments in time. It’s as if you’ve met and know each other for longer than you actually have.

Photography overall is one of my favorite investments as a brand. It’s not about spending a bunch of money or posing for all your photos, but it is about elevating your brand by showing different sides of your personality and if you’re not a photographer then hiring one can be one of the best investments in your business.

TAKE ACTION: Hire a photographer if you can and make sure you clearly articulate your brand values, ideal customer and the emotional connection you want to portray. More on prepping for a Brand Photoshoot here

But, even if you can’t invest in a photographer right now, you can use a tripod or a friend to take photos of you. Make sure you’re sharing different moments in time to achieve the Brand Affinity. Then share your photos on your website and of course on social media.

Take a look at my Instagram to get a feel for this!

4 | BUILD A COMMUNITY

There are a lot of different ways to build community outside of a private Facebook Group, even though everyone is telling you that you need one. The truth is you can build community on social media and through your email lists just as effectively.

When we think of community we think of a central location for everyone to hang out, but what you’re wanting to do is just declare your brand as the community.

For example, inside of my first email when you sign up for my email list I welcome new subscribers to the Brandmerry Community.

I’m always referring to the Brandmerry Community on my live streams, blogs and on social media. There isn’t a specific jacket we all wear, but we know. The women inside the community know I’m speaking to them and about them and that builds connection.

You could even go as far as declaring a name for your community.

This sense of unity makes someone feel as if they are part of something bigger. It’s not just about buying your product and peacing out it’s about belonging, which we as humans want.

TAKE ACTION: How can you use the tools at your fingertips to build a community? Will you give your audience a name? Determine some of the fun ways you can create a community that allows your audience to be part of something.

5 | EXCELLENT CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

It’s no secret that as consumers we want to be cared for. We don’t want to work extra hard to get the products and services we desire and once we make the decision, i.e. commitment, we want it to be easy.

This is where your customer service comes to the next level.

We often think the customer service is the sale, and while that is important, what comes next is what builds further Brand Affinity.

For instance, when someone purchases one of my services or courses they receive instant confirmation that their purchase has been received. Then, they receive an email with all the information they need, including login, how to access the materials, the next steps and where to start.

I take the guesswork out of getting started and right away my audience feels taken care of and trust is increased.

TAKE ACTION: How can you improve your customer service? If you have any holes in your process, post-sale, fill those now!

Want a deeper dive? Keep reading here

Emotional Branding 👇

What is Emotional Branding?

Emotional Branding is the art of communicating with your audience on a deeper, more personal level. It amplifies this idea of building relationships, which is what marketing truly is.

The end goal when marketing your business (which is just the art of amplifying your brand and attracting the right people) is relationship building.

And how do you know what types of content to create to build those relationships, if you don’t fully understand your audience?

This is why an integral piece of emotional branding and relationship marketing is knowing your audience.

By understanding your audience you can make decisions that connect deeply with their struggles, challenges and obstacles they’re facing and the goals and desires they are working towards and use that in your marketing.

And one more note on relationship marketing.

As consumers, we are bombarded with messages every day and we know as consumers that we're going to resonate with the ones that make us feel something, that stir something inside of us, that motivate us and make us feel a sense of belonging. This is the art of great branding.

Understanding how you want your audience to feel impacts the aesthetics of your brand; your logo, your font, your colors, your copy, the language that you're using in your copy, in your content, the stories that you're choosing, the messaging that you're using when you're on a live video, your website and even your products and services.

Emotional branding impacts every single aspect of your business.

The Benefits of Emotional Branding

A study from Harvard found that 90% of purchase decisions are made subconsciously.

This proves that the reason we buy is based not on the logistics we know about a product, but rather the interactions we’ve had that lead us to that brand and product/service. It comes down to the know, like and trust factor of a brand and how we feel the brand will solve our problem.

And as I mentioned above, when it comes to selling we always focus our energy on the sales conversation or the moment someone says, "I would like to buy your product," but that's not actually the buying process. The buying process is happening long before they decide to purchase or they put their credit card down, it's happening in those interactions with your brand.

So if the reason we invest in someone or something comes down to how that person, that product, that business, that brand ultimately makes us feel, wouldn’t you want to make sure you’re connecting on this level with your potential client?

I bet you do!

And it doesn’t stop there with the purchase. In fact, an area that many small business owners neglect is thinking about how they are continuing the art of emotional branding throughout the customer journey.

Yes, we need to start having real conversations about the customer journey and customer lifetime value.

When we start our businesses, it’s all about making money and with good reason. However, this mindset can keep us playing small as we continue to grow our business. Once we get those initial clients in the door what happens? How do we keep them engaged?

This is where emotional branding comes in because emotional branding has been proven to increase customer lifetime value and retention. When you build a deep connection with your audience from the start and continue to deliver on your mission, values and promise, you’re creating a fan for life.

And this is how you build a sustainable business!

Want a deeper dive? Keep reading here

Choose Your Brand Colors 👇

1. Brand Color Tip #1: Look at Your Daily Inspiration

The idea of personal branding is that you are the center of your brand and use your own personality traits, authentic voice and stories to create a brand that resonates with your ideal audience. If you don’t already know my stance on personal branding, be sure to check out this article here.

So with that in mind, why don’t we start with the things you already love?

When starting to create the aesthetics of your brand it can be really easy to get lost in what other people are doing, other professionals and other brands. The result is a loss of personal brand identity and blending in with others in your industry.

Rather than first looking outside yourself for inspiration, I recommend taking a look at two areas in your life: your closet and your home.

We buy things that inspire us and often that is associated with the psychology of color (more on that later), so why not use this personal color inspiration as a tool to choose your branding colors?

Start by looking at your closet and making a list of the top five colors you see most prominent.

Then repeat the process, by walking around your home.

Do you see an overlap in the specific colors, tone of color or color palette you tend to gravitate towards? This is where you should start when thinking of your branding colors.

2. Brand Color Tip #2: Identify Your Brand Emotions (Emotional Branding)

Just like with all things branding, after you’ve connected with the purpose and story behind your brand (aka you), it’s time to think of your audience.

We never want to create a brand that only takes our taste or style into consideration and we never want to create a brand solely for others that doesn’t connect deeply to ourselves.

So, after you’ve identified the colors you enjoy most, it’s important to think of how you want your audience to feel.

This is referred to as Emotional Branding and is something I teach my clients in my signature programs. You can learn more about Emotional Branding above!

When thinking of your brand colors, you need to know your ideal client very well, the reason for this is if you don’t understand their pain and pleasure points you won’t be able to use the power of psychology to choose your colors.

For instance, if I know my ideal client is feeling overwhelmed, is highly stressed and struggles with time management, I won’t choose a color that tends to elicit a feeling of anger.

On the flip side, if I know my client is driving to feel pleasure in her home and her health and loves the eco-lifestyle, then I would choose a color like green, which gives a feeling or serenity and organic.

In order to choose the right colors based on psychology, you need to know your audience and use that information to decide how you want your audience to feel when coming in contact with your brand.

So, before moving on to step three, it’s important to identify 5-7 brand emotions to relay to your audience.

If you need support with understanding market research and why it’s important, be sure to catch my free masterclass on The Build a Better Brand Method. Sign up here.

3. Brand Color Tips #3: Choosing Your Brand Colors Based on Psychology

Ok, no the REALLY fun part and the part I seriously geek out on. This is why emotional branding is so important because everything that relates to the aesthetics of your brand: colors, fonts, logo design, website layout, brand photos, etc… can be built on the fundamentals of psychology.

I recommend choosing three brand colors as your main colors and explore complimentary colors to play around with on social media.

Click here to learn about the different color psychology

Must Haves for Brand Messaging 👇

WHAT IS BRAND MESSAGING

Brand messaging is how you communicate the purpose of your brand, the problem that it solves, what you do, the work that you do, and the products that you have in a magnetic way.

It's not only about attracting the right people, it's also leading them, and converting them to the offer. It's about bundling it all up in a clear, specific and concise way.

People are always telling me, "I want a better way to communicate what it is I do to my audience so that they want to do it."

And I'm like, "That is brand messaging." It's all about communication.

The mistake people make with their brand messaging is just focusing on what they do. They craft messages that say, "This is what I do. This is what I create. This is how many modules there are," and they don't focus on why those things are important.

Their focus is, “Well, this is how I'll help you, and this is what I'll do with x, y and z”, and not focused on why their audience cares about those things in the first place.

What your audience really wants to know is how what you say you're going to do will benefit them. Because when we're going into buying something, yes, we might be looking for specific things, but we want to know it's going to solve our problem and it's going to help us get to the end result that we want.

I know that might seem like a lot to include, you might be thinking, "How do I communicate all of that?" but it truly is quite simple.

WHERE TO USE BRAND MESSAGING

Brand messaging can be and should be designed for your brand as a whole. This is something that I teach inside of my programs and referred to as Core Brand Messages.

It's this idea that your brand as a whole solves a very specific problem for your ideal customer, and you need to understand why solving that problem is important to your ideal customer.

But then, you can also create different variations of that or even more specific messages for a particular offer, for a landing page, for a webinar, for a sales page, in an email, etc...

For instance, I have core brand messages for Brandmerry as a whole. But then, my program, Brandmerry Academy, which focuses specifically on marketing and teaching people how to market their business, has very specific messages on marketing. I don't talk about the basics of starting a business because we're focused on marketing.

I reserve those types of messages for my program Roadmap to Freedom.

Strong messaging is used everywhere and anywhere you want to sell something, and following this brand messaging framework will make your life way easier.

BRAND MESSAGING FRAMEWORK

Excellent messaging always comes back to knowing your audience. So, even though I’m going to share with you a framework for your messages, I want you to remember the language you’ll use will come from what you know about your ideal customer.

We can't craft messages that convert, sales pages that sell, email campaigns that email, we can't do any of that if we don't know how to communicate to our audience.

I think copywriting is such an art. And so many people are like, "Well, I'll just hire a copywriter. I'll just get to a place when I hire a copywriter." But you're never going to get there if you don't know how to do it now yourself.

There are people who are incredibly skilled at writing copy, and they freaking own that. They're just masters at it. But, everyone at the bare minimum needs to just understand how to communicate to their audience. And that's really what messaging is. And as you can see, so much of your messaging working is reliant on understanding who you're talking to and then letting them tell you what they want and the language that they use and plugging that into your copy.

The framework, once you have the market research, is actually quite simple.

The brand messaging framework includes what you do, the problem you solve and why it’s important.

PART ONE: WHAT YOU PROVIDE

You need to note that it’s not just one thing, otherwise you’d have one brand message. What you do needs to be broken down into pieces. Think about your framework, modules you offer, modalities, techniques or just the flow you lead your client through.

PART TWO: WHAT PROBLEM DOES IT SOLVE

Taking it back to the ideal client work, understanding the struggles/ pains of your ideal customer is huge. When you know what they want to avoid or what they are working towards you can use that to share how what you do will help them achieve that.

This is the second stage of messaging to say, “This is what I do so you can…”

PART THREE: ADDING THE REAL BENEFIT AND URGENCY

This is all about why your audience should care and why it’s important. This is the sweet spot of brand messaging and the difference between someone working with you and someone not working with you, someone buying your course and not buying your course, someone buying your product and not buying your product.

If they aren’t clear on how investing in this will serve them, they won’t do it!

Want a deeper dive? Keep reading here

4 Branding Tips 👇

Branding is hard, there I said it!

As a Branding and Business Coach for Female Entrepreneurs, I support women in branding and marketing themselves online and building the business of their dreams.

However, it took me months to find my personal brand after being stuck in a cycle of comparison and lost in connecting to my true story and personality.

I started my business with a single struggle - how to brand myself and my services online.

I spent eight months trying to create an online brand based on other’s expectations and it resulted in zero clients.

That was almost 4 years ago and since that time I’ve grown my community to thousands of women, celebrated over $400,000 cash in my business and figured out this whole personal branding thing, so much it’s what I now teach as the foundation of all my programs and as an online business coach.

And, if I’m being honest I think so many online coaches, especially business coaches get the whole branding thing wrong. It isn’t as simple as picking your colors and fonts and sure as heck doesn’t revolve solely around your service, product or offer.

However, it is one of the most important things you can do for your business!

You can learn more about The Build a Better Brand Method here.

Aside from the 3-part method I teach inside the free training, I wanted to share with you 4 great branding tips from someone who not branded herself online, but also teaches other women how to do the same.

Let’s get into it!

1. Tapping into Your Story

Yes, Storytelling is my signature tool to support female entrepreneurs and for good reason...storytelling is the key to branding.

The first thing you really need to do as a personal brand is to actually identify your story. You need to identify the reason behind your brand. You need to identify the mission behind your brand and tap into the different ways that your story, your personality brings that to life.

One of the things that separate a personal brand from a regular brand is the personality behind it and so you want to be able to input you into everything that you do in the online space and there's no better way to do that and set yourself apart from other people than by tapping into your story.

I highly recommend looking at your business, looking at the brand that you want to create, and then look back at your story.

There are various chapters to see which ones connect to where you are now. This is going to help you get started and actually sharing your story in the online space and start to build that trust, like and know factor with your audience.

Additional resources:

Where and When to Share Your Story. Click to read more.

How to Identify Your Brand Story. Click here to read.

2. Emotional Branding

If there is one secret weapon I learned earlier on in my biz as I was designing my business coaching programs, it's the importance and power of emotional branding.

We all know that feeling when we just click with a brand. We become obsessed with their content, products, IG stories, etc…

That's not because we need their product it's because we feel something when we're connected to them. This is emotional branding, and it's how I feel every time I think of Trader Joe's ♥️

Emotional Branding is so important no matter what you sell. Think of how you want your audience to feel when they see, hear, read or come in contact with your brand (remember it's not just aesthetics). How can you build trust with your audience by making them feel this connection?

P.S. this is also why we buy, because of an emotional connection, so you're doing yourself the service of not only attracting lifelong fans but also making sales.

Additional resources:

How to Build an Online Community Through Emotional Branding. Click to read more.

How to Attract Your Dream Clients Through Emotional Branding. Click to read more.

3. Clear Communication and Messaging

My third tip for you is around clear communication and messaging. You literally can not have an effective and revenue-generating brand without this piece.

How you communicate who you are, what you provide and in a way that resonates with your audience can make or break your business.

So I get this question a lot. “How much do I share?” “What parts of my story do I share?” And this is the communication component.

If you have a piece of your story that you think is really amazing, but you cannot connect that to your audience, it's not the right time to share that.

So some of the key things that I love to ask myself, is this valuable to my audience? And what kind of value do they get?

This allows me to make sure everything that I'm creating with my personal brand, every way that I'm communicating it through my marketing, my email and my social media is always going to resonate with my audience. This is the key.

Make sure your messaging is clearly communicating the benefit of working with you, of your service, of your product, with your audience so they can really see themselves in the outcome of your product.

Additional Resource:

How to Create Better Brand Messaging. Click to read more.

4. Create a Sensory Brand Experience

This one might be a combination of all three but it's worth repeating. Great brands are sensory, meaning they play on all the senses we as humans experience.

This is important because in the online space we often can't touch a product before we buy but we can get the same feeling through strong imagery and copy.

Focusing on creating a sensory experience invites your audience in and makes it real, tangible and unforgettable.

This is why I love storytelling so much because it gives you an opportunity to paint a picture for your audience.

The next time you're writing copy or choosing images think of how you can describe something so your reader feels as though they are right there in the room with you - this will not only increase awareness of your brand but also lead to more sales.

Actionable Step:

4 Steps to an Authentic and Revenue-Generating Personal Brand. Click to read here.

Want a deeper dive? Keep reading here

And don’t forget to sign up to watch my on-demand Build a Better Brand Method training! We dive deeper into my signature 6-part framework.

👉 Sign up for the training at brandmerry.com/brandmasterclass.

Branding and Business Coach | Michelle Knight of Brandmerry

P.S. Have you tuned in to The Beautiful Climb podcast? I release new episodes every other Friday on topics around productivity, motherhood, habits, goals and going after the life of your dreams! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at thebeautifulclimb.com